580
PARTISAN REVIEW
the metaphysical slope to the conclusion tha t each reader's optional
strategy, by determining his responsive experi ence, creates everything
but the marks on the page, including the autho r whose intentional
verbal acts, we had mi stakenl y assumed, effectua te the text as meaning–
ful discourse.
From this position Fish draws the consequen ce that, since all
reading strategies are self- confirming, there is no " ri ght reading" of
an y part of a text; there are onl y agreements among readers who belong
to an " interpretive community" whi ch happens
to
share the same
stra tegy. And with his usual acumen, Fish acknowl edges that the
reading strategy he himself p roposes is no less "arbi trary" in its
adoption and therefore no less a "fi cti on" than a lterna tive ways of
reading; hi s justification for urging it upon us is tha t it is "a superior
fi ction. " It is superior because it is " more coherent" in the relati on of
its practice to its principl es, and because " it is also crea ti ve." Insistence
on a " right reading" and " the rea l text" a re
the fi ctions of formalism, and as fi ction s they have the disadvantage
of being confining. My fi cti on is liberating.
It
reli eves me of the
obligation to be right (a standard that simpl y drop s out) and
demands onl y that I be interesting (a standard that can be met
without an y referen ce at all to an illusory obj ectivity). Rather than
restoring or recoverin g texts, I am in the business of making texts
and of teaching others to make them by adding to their repertoire of
strategies.
In these claims Fish does his own critical practi ce less than justice.
Many of hi s close readings of litera ry texts effect in his readers a shock
of recognition whi ch is the sign tha t they are not merely interes ting,
but that they are ri ght. In such readings, however, he escapes hi s own
theory and reads as other competent readers do, onl y more expertl y
than many of us; hi s ori enta ti on to the actual p rocess of reading serves
in these instances to sen sitize him
to
nuances effected by the author's
choice and order of words tha t we h ave hitherto mi ssed. And even
when, in conformity with hi s sta ted stra tegy, Fi sh crea tes meanings by
reading between the words, the new readings a re o ft en, as he cl aims,
interesting. They are interesting because they are bravura criti cal
performances by a learned, resourceful , and willy intelli gence, and not
leas t, because the new readings never entirely dep art from implicit
reli ance on the old way of reading texts.
I remain unpersuaded, therefore, tha t the hermeneuti c circle is
inescapabl y, as Fish represents it, a vi cious circle- a cl osed interp lay
between a reader's arbitrary strategy and his interpreti ve findin gs. I
